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There is no doubt that over the last number of years our country has becoming more and more diverse and is indeed all the richer for that. Today as a society we celebrate diversity in a whole host of ways. We celebrate diversity of culture, race and ethnicity in almost every part of Ireland, we celebrate diversity of language, diversity in terms of food, diversity in our religious and political beliefs and our ideologies, diversity in sexual orientation, in physical ability. And yet is celebrate the right word? We may have acceptance that our society is changing, we may have tolerance of difference (and still to some degree we don’t!) but do we actually celebrate difference, individuality, uniqueness to the extent that we believe that human diversity in all its many forms is enriching for us as a society and as individuals.

In my view this is the approach to diversity we need to embrace as Educate Together schools. Our schools need to be places where the uniqueness of each individual is understood and welcomed, where equity and mutual respect are intrinsic to our school community, where the richness and variety in our society and within each one of us is embraced without prejudice.

In any school community there will be differences in age, family types, gender, sexual orientation, belief systems, race; differences in knowledge and skills, differences in life experiences, to name but a few. Some of the adult diversity will be reflected among the student population, who will also come with their own additional dimensions of diversity. The real aim for us in an Educate Together school is to ensure that these diverse elements are so valued and embraced that they are not perceived as ‘differences’ but are thought of simply as part of the rich diversity of human existence, intrinsically valued without question.

Difficulties among children, and indeed incidences of bullying, are very often a result of fear or intolerance of difference. Many children fear what they don’t understand. If they perceive someone as being different or ‘other’, and there is an absence of a culture that celebrates individuality and rejects prejudice, the way is left open for intolerance and ridicule to dominate. In Educate Together schools we confidently claim that ‘no child is an outsider’ and certainly no child is refused admission based on their beliefs, family background, social standing or for any other reason. But are we able to meet all the diverse needs of children inside our schools? Can we insure that diversity is embraced and cherished among all our children? Are we able to be models for the children of a society where all are cherished equally for being the unique individuals that they are, without intolerance, prejudice or discrimination?

In our schools we need to be strong advocates for diversity, champions of uniqueness. We need to model this in all our dealings with children and promote this way of being throughout our school communities. If children live and learn and grow in an atmosphere that is not just open to diversity, but actively welcoming of diversity, then they themselves have every chance of becoming genuinely embracing of diversity in all its forms.

This month schools are being urged to take part in the INTO sponsored Different Families, Same Love competition, which is a call to teachers to take action in their classrooms to celebrate the diversity of people and families In Ireland. A good range of teaching resources has been provided to aid lessons on the topic and it is emphasized that ‘it is vitally important for all children to see their families represented in the course of these lessons’. Teachers are urged to facilitate discussion and activities that celebrate and respect similarities and differences among students and their families.

Competition entries, like our families, can take many forms, so after completing the lessons students can represent their learning individually, in groups or as a class project, and can submit their entries in a variety of forms for the competition, which is open to all primary schools and special schools in Ireland.

In RETNS classes are already starting work on the lessons, and we look forward to seeing the competition entries from our pupils and to acknowledging and celebrating the rich diversity of family life that exists in our school.

“Diversity is the one thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day”.

There has been much media coverage over the past few weeks on the topic of internet safety for children, chiefly as a result of the recent serious and very disturbing incident involving the exploitation of young children online by a Dublin man. Parents and guardians, being the first educators of children, are best placed to help young people become aware of safety issues online and can hugely influence the online behaviour of young children. Parents might be interested in reading the following article on the topic.

Webwise, Ireland’s Internet Safety website, has a parents’ portal with a downloadable guide and interactive chat providing support and advice for parents in this important area. https://www.webwise.ie/parents/

Another online resource for parents is www.zeeko.ie. Zeeko is an Irish company based at Nova UCD, which works to support parents in keeping children safe online.

Zeeko publishes a free internet safety guide, which can be accessed below, and weekly blog posts on matters of internet safety.

This week’s blog is an interview with the Head of Research at Zeeko, Dr. Marina Everri.

With Safer Internet Day approaching (Tuesday, February 6th) we will be addressing internet safety issues in school. The Theme for Safer Internet Day 2018 is “Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you”.

Safer Internet Day might provide an ideal opportunity to start a discussion with your child, a discussion which, if started early, could have far-reaching consequences for your child’s safety online.

Our ICT committee helps make pupils aware of internet safety and last year drew up a list of protocols for responding to blogs online. This was forwarded to the Board of Management and approved for use by the pupils.

During the autumn term we held a review of homework , seeking the views of pupils, parents and staff on current homework provision. Results of the parents’ survey were published here on Principal’s Blog (November 2017). We have followed up with some gradual changes to homework provision, with more changes planned.

In the survey, an overwhelming 81% of respondents said that they would support a varied approach to homework. Creative tasks and active homework were among the most popular activities suggested. Overall, while there is a generally positive view of homework among parents, there does appear to be a strong view in favour of finding new and innovative ways of approaching homework in order to keep the love of learning alive. This result concurs with the views of staff and pupils, although many pupils would love to see homework banned altogether!

Our teaching approach in RETNS includes much active learning and we agree that active learning helps develop and nurture a love for learning. Teachers have been making changes to homework tasks with more use of an active homework once a week, learning logs to encourage reflection on learning, project work and, in senior classes, setting homework tasks over a week to encourage responsibility and good planning. While trying to maintain a balance between traditional homework tasks and more innovative approaches, teachers are committed to continuing to reflect on their approach to homework and to giving tasks that are varied and that encourage pupils to be reflective, creative and active.

Homework activities provide a good opportunity for children to develop good mental health practices and to this end we have introduced, throughout the school, a ‘gratitude log’ which we will develop with the children over the coming weeks, and teachers plan to introduce one yoga pose or stretching exercise each week. This has already been introduced in one class, with positive feedback from parents, who feel that their children benefit very much from the activity. As the weather improves, along with outdoor learning activities in-school, we will increase our emphasis on outdoor homework, as we value the learning opportunities offered by the ‘outdoor classroom’ all around us.

Gratitude

A recent edition of Healthy Ireland, Health Promoting Schools Update, stated that ‘finding opportunities to engage in gratitude daily can be one of the most beneficial practices for students’. The publication goes on to state:

A number of studies have shown that even a small dose of daily gratitude can increase optimism, decrease negative feelings, enhance school connectedness, and improve overall attitudes towards school and learning.

Through our weekly Gratitude Log, daily ‘three good things’ exercise, in-class prompts and reflections at assembly, we are aiming to encourage an ‘attitude of gratitude’ among the pupils, which has already brought benefits to many children. This simple homework activity can become part of a ‘mental health toolkit’ providing an ideal opportunity for parents to help children reflect on what they are grateful for and to help promote positive emotions.

Active learning is always encouraged in school and we try to bring some of this approach to homework tasks.There are infinite opportunities for learning outdoors.Children learn by doing.

The Children First Act was enacted in November 2015. However, it was only partially commenced by means of a statutory instrument resulting in the abolition of reasonable chastisement by parents. The result of this legislation is that the protections in law relating to assault now apply to a child in the same way as they do to an adult.

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs commenced the remaining provisions of the Children First Act, 2015 effective from 11 December 2017.

The Children First Act, 2015 provides for a number of key child protection measures that are relevant to schools, as follows:

A requirement on organisations providing services to children, which includes all schools, to keep children safe and to produce a Child Safeguarding Statement;

A requirement on defined categories of persons (mandated persons), which includes registered teachers, to report child protection concerns over a defined threshold to the Child and Family Agency (Tusla);

A requirement on mandated persons, which includes registered teachers, to assist Tusla in the assessment of a child protection risk, if so requested to do so by Tusla.

In her forward to Children First National Guidance 2017, Minister Katherine Zappone outlines the need for all those working with children to ensure that they are safe from harm. The Guidance sets out the new statutory obligations for mandated persons. All mandated persons are required to report ‘any knowledge, belief or reasonable suspicion that a child has been harmed, is being harmed or is at risk of being harmed.’ The Guidance also sets out best practice (non-statutory) obligations which are in place for all individuals, including teachers, special needs assistants, school secretaries and caretakers.

In accordance with the requirements of the Children First Act, RETNS Board of Management will be producing a Child Safeguarding Statement, to include a risk assessment, by March 11th 2018, which will be displayed prominently and available on request.

As always, all staff will remain vigilant in all matters pertaining to the safety of children.

On Tuesday, December 5th, we had a visit from the eTwinning coordinator at Léargas, Liliana O’Reilly, and her colleague Anna D’Arcy. Léargas is the National Support Service for eTwinning in Ireland.

Liliana O’Reilly and Anna D’Arcy from Léargas visit RETNS.

Initially Liliana made contact with the school to extend her congratulations on the work our school is already doing on the eTwinning platform and to suggest that she visit the school to discuss the impact our school’s work on eTwinning has had on our staff professional development, our school and our students and to see how they could support us in expanding our work on eTwinning projects.

Liliana visited Senior Infants, First class, Third and Fourth classes, which had been involved in recent eTwinning projects, and listened to the children explain about their involvement in eTwinning and what they learned from the projects. She also gave a very informative staff presentation on how teachers can start or continue their involvement in eTwinning, and on the support available from Léargas.

What is eTwinning?

eTwinning is a free and secure online platform linking a community of more than 500,000 teachers across Europe. It allows teachers working in Europe to communicate, collaborate, develop projects, share and be part of a large learning community. It supports primary and post primary schools to find partners and work on joint projects in any curricular area, using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). eTwinning is funded by the European Union and administered in participating countries by a National Support Service (NSS).

There are many benefits for staff in using eTwinning. It gives direct contact with education professionals in other European countries, develops awareness of teaching approaches used in other countries and allows sharing of expertise and experience. For children, eTwinning provides increased motivation, as they have an audience for their work in a school in another country, it enhances key skills, including ICT use, it provides greater cultural awareness, encourages self-directed learning and develops problem-solving and critical thinking skills in relation to subject content.

Our involvement in eTwinning began during our Blue Star programme last year, when we worked initially on projects with schools in Poland and Italy, and on further projects with schools in Sicily and Finland. eTwinning proved very successful with staff and children, who were able to explain their involvement in the projects to our visitors from Léargas.

One of our projects was when RETNS initiated the Leaf Hunt Project with schools in Sicily and Finland.

Children from a school in each of the three countries took photos of trees around their school neighbourhoods and made PowerPoint presentations for each other. The information swap between the three schools resulted in very interesting projects.

We hope to continue our eTwinning involvement during the coming year as we believe that there are many benefits from this type of learning for everyone involved.

Our eTwinning project formed part of our work towards the European Blue Star award last year.

Our third annual Science Fair was held on Friday, November 24th. This year’s event was bigger than ever, with a record number of visitors from our parent body. Fifth and sixth class students put a great effort into preparing for the Science Fair, setting up their stalls attractively and competently answering all questions put to them. Our budding scientists provided a great range of experiments and tests for the visitors including the popular Guess the Flavours and The Stroop Effect, demonstrations on how slime works, what happens when you mix different liquids and an example of the power of wind, to name but a few. Here are some photos from the event.

As part of our review of homework in RETNS we asked parents and guardians to take part in a survey to gauge views on current homework provision and to suggest how we could make homework tasks more relevant to children in our school. A total of 85 people (more than half of our 148 families) took part in the survey and most respondents answered all the questions. Out of that number, 48.8% of respondents feel that homework is worthwhile, 28% feel it is not worthwhile, and 28% don’t know.

Responding to current homework provision

Respondents were initially asked some questions on current homework provision. When asked for a view on the amount of homework being given, 44% of respondents felt that the amount of homework currently given is just right, although a high proportion, 29.8%, felt that it is usually too much. When asked how difficult/easy your child finds homework, 68.3% felt that it is usually about right, with 17.1% feeling that it varies too much to say. A small proportion of respondents (8.5%) felt that homework is usually too easy, and only 3.7% of respondents felt that their child’s homework is too hard.

Most respondents felt that their child can complete homework without help or supervision ‘most of the time’ (45%) or ‘sometimes’ (30%), while ‘hardly ever’ was cited by 18.8% of respondents. For those who stated that their child has difficulty working alone, tiredness was cited as the main reason for this problem, although a sizeable number (24 respondents) said that their child resents having to work at home.

There was a fairly even balance between those who feel that their child learns a lot from doing homework (32.1%) and those who disagree with the statement (34.6%), while 10 respondents out of 81 who answered the question ‘strongly disagreed’ with the statement. When asked if doing homework helps a child become independent 50.6% of respondents agreed, while 32.5% disagreed.

Encouragingly, 57.5% of respondents stated that their child ‘usually’ knows what he/she has to do for homework, with 30% replying that their child ‘always’ knows what to do. Regarding organisational problems in regard to homework the most common responses were that children sometimes forget to write down assignments or forget to bring home books or materials required.

On some of the other questions, a majority of respondents said that they always see their child’s homework, with over half the respondents stating that they sign homework ‘usually’ or ‘sometimes’. Asked whether their child enjoys homework, 19% either ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ but 35% disagreed with the statement. 56.3% of respondents felt that homework can ‘sometimes’ be a cause of friction in the home, although 21.3% felt that this is never the case. With regard to the issue of making provision for homework, two main difficulties were cited; the fact that children need a lot of downtime after a busy day in school and that they are involved in many outside activities.

Reviewing homework – future possibilities

A sizeable number of respondents in the survey (40/82) believe that homework is worthwhile, with the fact that it keeps parents informed about school work being cited as the number one reason for this answer. For those who felt that homework is not worthwhile the main reason cited was that it can be a cause of friction and anxiety at home. Some comments were very strongly in favour of no homework, with one respondent saying that homework takes children away from family time and activities they love, and creates a negative association with learning.

When asked which areas of homework they felt should be left out, the overwhelming majority said rote learning, e.g. poems to be learned by heart. A smaller percentage (17.5%) suggested that tables should be left out. Irish reading and Irish spellings were the other two main areas which respondents felt should be left off homework.

Looking to the future, 66.7% of respondents said they would support a policy that gives written and learning homework Monday to Wednesday, with learning homework only on a Thursday. An overwhelming 81% said that they would support a varied approach to homework and there was support for a wide range of the activities suggested. Creative tasks and active homework were among the most popular answers.

In addition to completing the survey, many parents/guardians took the time to write further comments. Some made additional suggestions for activities that promote critical thinking or would keep children interested in learning after a hard day at school. The range of additional comments shows what parents and guardians value in terms of homework and gives much valuable feedback in relation to this dialogue and review of homework provision in RETNS.

Conclusion

All of the comments will be taken into account and we are very grateful to those who took the time to complete this survey and make further constructive and insightful suggestions.

Judging by the responses and comments, while there is a generally positive view of homework, there does appear to be a strong view in favour of finding new and innovative ways of approaching homework in order to keep the love of learning alive. Our teaching approach in RETNS includes much active learning and we agree that active learning helps develop and nurture a love for learning. We are fully committed to extending this to homework as much as possible.

To add weight to our small research findings, the recently launched ‘So, how was school today?’ report states that,

‘75% of young people agreed or strongly agreed that they learned best through active learning such as quizzes, learning games and role play etc.’ Project work and debates are also cited as examples of active learning in the report.

This major report was launched on November 6th by Minister Katherine Zappone TD and Minister Richard Bruton TD. More than 3,200 young people in the 12-17 age bracket took part in the Comhairle na nÓg research which focused on the topic of Education.

On Friday, October 6th, we celebrated One Day Together, to highlight Educate Together’s National Fund-raising efforts. At our assembly, 5th class gave an excellent presentation on what it means to be educated in an Educate Together school and helped the rest of the students to see the many ways in which we are similar to other schools yet also to think about the ways in which Educate Together schools differ from other schools in some important aspects. Their presentations, which show a very good understanding of the different aspects of our ethos, are displayed on our Ethos Board at the top of the stairs.

Here are some quotes from their writings.

In Educate Together schools the children can get creative and voice their ideas and opinions.

We do not treat you differently if you are different.

Educate Together is not a one belief school.

As kids in an Educate Together school we are respected by teachers and staff. We are allowed to wear what we like so we can exercise our own individuality. We call our teachers by their first names so we can have a better working and personal relationship with them. I feel very privileged and grateful to be in an Educate Together school.

No matter who you are, where you’re from and/or what you believe in, you always have a chance at an ET school.

I love my Educate Together school and I’m really grateful that I go to one.

Many schools are discovering the value of using mindfulness to help create calm in classrooms, to increase children’s capacity to become still and notice what is around them and to help them feel good about themselves. Research has indicated that mindfulnesss practices, although simple, are very profound and can create a solid foundation on which to build self-worth, compassion and resilience.

Research by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland shows that one in three children will have experienced a mental health problem by the time he or she reaches 13 years of age. Experts say that while mindfulness may not be the ‘absolute fix’ for children’s mental health issues, it can at least help give them skills from a young age to develop their resilience and ability to cope with the ups and downs of life.

Our teachers have been using mindfulness techniques for some time and sharing lots of good ideas. Part of our mindfulness practice in school has been our very successful Mindfulness Monday initiative, in which a class take on to remind us every Monday to take a mindful moment every so often and to focus on the positive. The students in fourth class are creating a set of positive inspirational thoughts, one of which will be promoted and displayed each week.

Many experts believe that ‘little and often’ is the way to go with mindfulness practices, so constant small reminders to ‘take a moment’ can be very effective. Our teachers use ‘Yoga Pretzels’ which are fun yoga activities for kids (& grownups!) and small visualisations throughout the week. Children are also given regular movement breaks during the day and opportunities to learn outside when possible, including Forest Learning. On Monday nights, as part of Mindfulness Monday, children will be asked to write a Gratitude Log (or similar as appropriate) as part of their homework.

Some useful resources for doing mindfulness at home are:

http://www.mindfulnessmatters.ie/ which has a range of materials and a link to the RTE Nationwide programme on Mindfulness in Schools

http://www.cosmickids.com/learn/ where you can learn to teach kids yoga through online training

Forest Learning is an educational initiative designed to offer pupils an opportunity to achieve through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland environment. Regular sessions take place in a woodland environment, where the landscape itself adds to the experience of learning. Fifth and Sixth class have been participating in the Forest Learning experience for the last few weeks in St. Enda’s Park. Here are some pictures of the pupils at work.